The Flat-Earthers Return

The serious, the shocking and the silly: the IPCC report and the climate deniers

The Fifth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has just issued its report. The result of thorough evaluation of respected, peer-reviewed scientific literature written by thousands of experts, the report represents the work of 800 scientists and government officials from 195 countries. Each of the five reports issued to date, at intervals of 5-6 years, has stated with yet more certainty that humans are the dominant cause of global warming, with the probability now up to >95%. In this latest report, phenomena in the oceans and ice cover are perhaps the most disturbing aspects: a much more rapid rise of sea level is now expected, the Greenland ice cover is more unstable than previously thought, and the Arctic ocean is expected to be ice free in summer by mid-century, far earlier than in previous estimates. For the first time, the panel set an upper limit on greenhouse gases – a sort of carbon budget.

One of the impressive aspects of this panel is its cooperative nature. Everything from the papers to be studied to the final wording is arrived at by consensus. Both scientists and government officials participate. Because of the sheer volume of highly-regarded material studied, the openness of the painstaking process and the credentials of those on the panel, the reports are widely respected in the scientific world and by the governments of the participating countries. Because the many participants must be reasonably happy with the final report, all agree that the conclusions are conservative and cautious, certainly not exaggerated.

Now let’s turn from the rational and the measured and look at the statements of American climate deniers. Dismissing these as members of a fringe group ignores the terrifying fact that not a single Republican on the Senate Environment Committee accepts climate science, and 17 out of 22 Republican members of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, or 77 percent, are climate change deniers. Searching for reasons for their beliefs and behavior, it is difficult to ignore the enormous contributions made by the fossil-fuel industry to the reelection campaigns of many of these lawmakers.

One egregious example of political pressure can be found in the report issued earlier this year by the state of Virginia on the effects of climate change on the state’s shores. Virginia is responding to rising sea levels with millions of dollars poured into raising roads and houses, replacing piers etc. But thanks to pressure from the Tea Party, words like “climate change” and “sea-level rise” were omitted from the title of the report – they are considered “liberal code words”. Head-in-the-sand behavior, projection, cynicism or just plain self-serving: take your pick.

Political ideologists are joined by the likes of radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who has solemnly announced that “you can't believe in both God and climate change”. He is not alone in coloring science with religious ideology, with statements abounding that call it arrogant to say we humans have anything to do with climate – God is in charge thereof. This group seems not to believe that God helps those who help themselves.

Perhaps the height of foolishness can be laid at the door of California congressman Dana Rohrabacher, who stated that maybe climate change was caused by dinosaur flatulence. Less bizarre, but completely unscientific are the comments from those who assert that climate change has stopped, or that the planet is in fact cooling. If one looks at a chart of average temperatures for the last several decades, the recent short-term average has indeed not shown an increase, as is the case for several other short-term averages on the chart, but it is the unequivocal long-term climb that is scientifically meaningful.

If one stands back from the fray one sees, as David Roberts says on grist.org, that if conservatives accepted the facts of global warming they would have to accept federal action to deal with such an enormous problem or witness widespread human suffering. An impossible choice for a group that rejects more federal power, so they attack the science instead.

The very best comment on climate deniers came from President Obama, explaining his program for climate change in June of this year. Telling listeners that he has little patience for those who deny that the problem of climate change is real, he said, “We don’t have time for a meeting of the flat earth society”. And that’s what is most appalling about climate deniers; we are running out of time as it is, we simply can’t afford to be held hostage by the hidden and not-so-hidden agendas of the self-serving and the deluded.